Monday, March 22, 2010

FP morning post 3/22

Tensions flare in West Bank as Netanyahu heads to Washington

Top news: As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed for Washington today on a trip meant to address a growing rift in U.S.-Israel relations, tensions were flaring back home after the killing of four Palestinian teenagers by Israeli soldiers over the weekend.

Two of the youths were killed in Nablus on Sunday. The Israeli military says they were trying to stab a soldier on patrol while Palestinian authorities claim they were innocent farmworkers. Two other teenagers were killed in a clash between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators near a Jewish settlement on the West Bank on Saturday. The circumstances of that killing are also disputed. The Israel Defense Forces also carried out an airstrike on a smuggling tunnel in Gaza on Sunday night in response to the recent firing of several rockets into Israel.

During his visit to the United States, Netanyahu will address a meeting of the pro-Israel lobbing group AIPAC and meet with President Barack Obama to address a dispute over the construction of more housing for Israelis in disputed East Jerusalem. At a cabinet meeting on Sunday Netanyahu indicated no plans to reverse the decision to build. "Our policy toward Jerusalem is the same policy of all Israeli governments in the past 42 years and it has not changed," he said.

Speaking in Amman, Jordan, U.S. envoy George Mitchell reiterated the U.S. commitment to peace talks and urged restraint from both sides. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will also address the AIPAC conference today where she is expected to reaffirm that despite the current dispute, the U.S.-Israel relationship remains "rock solid."

U.S. politics: By a vote of 219-212, the House of Representatives voted to approve a massive overhaul of the U.S. health insurance system.

Middle East

As he slips behind Ayad Allawi in the overall vote, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is calling for a manual recount of the ballots from parliamentary elections.